This organization works primarily with Self-Help Groups. They have been working in the area long before the tsunami. They have helped form about 300 self-help groups with around 20 women in each group. There are both fisherwomen and agricultural women’s groups. Post tsunami, SNEHA tried to jump start livelihood by introducing various non-fishing related activities like tailoring, pickle-making etc. The fisherwomen strongly did not want to get involved in non-fishing related activities. SNEHA is now looking into activities like providing seed funding for dry fish platforms, flour mills one for every 8 villages that the women can run, etc. They are also trying to hook up with ‘Just Change’ of Gudalur for direct trade activities. 20% of the fisher-families earnings go towards purchase of rice, their staple. SNEHA figured that if this percentage could be reduced then they would have more disposable income on hand. To this extent they are linking up with ‘Just Change’, a program in its infancy, started by Stan Thekkakera of ACCORD in Gudalur. ‘Just Change’ trades products such as tea, rice, etc. grown by the aadivasis of Gudalur area, directly to the end user thereby cutting out the middlemen overheads. This has worked well in the pilot stage for ACCORD in Gudalur, which is now thinking of scaling the program.

SNEHA is also involved in a unique project with children called the Children’s Parliament. They currently have about 50 kids between the ages of 11-18 in groups representing different areas with leaders. Each group meets twice a week and discusses issues of basic need, hygiene and education. The group leaders of these various groups then meet and discuss on how to resolve these issues. They are also involved in activities such as cleaning their neighborhood.

Observations

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A stable organization which seems to have the trust of the people

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They are major part of the NGO coordination center

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Their livelihood programs could easily be scaled and replicated since their target group is huge

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Too large a target group and hence may not have the bandwidth to be effective in a disaster response situation